This.
Wild fluctuations in fortune.
Both sides having 3 (sometimes 4) slips and a gully.
8 batsmen being bowled.
No outrageous catch or run-out.
Best side on the day won.
The sort of game that any club side could imagine themselves playing on any Saturday.
England Sri Lanka looking finely balanced with England at 154 for 3after 34 overs. Can England avoid a middle order collapse and post a good total?
Meanwhile, back in about 1979, England shock themselves by taking 68 off the first 10 overs against Sri Lanka and then spend most of the next 20 leaving balls and patting singles. A good side could still make something out of 145/3 off 30 - with England it’s even money whether they fall in a heap or meander to about 260 and wonder why they lose with overs to spare.
And England can’t catch a break. They must have been pretty pleased with their 310, until Sri Lanka went mad with the bat.
I would second that. Much as I hate to see the Kiwis win anything I really admire Vettori and it would be great.
…
Bond got 6 for 23.
Imran Khan once got 6 for 14 in a losing side but I have no idea if that was a World Cup match- probably not.
I thought of Gary Gilmour who took 6 for 14 in a semi final against England, but Australia actually won that game.
After a day to reflect on yesterday’s game I’m starting to think that Australia, despite losing, come away from it looking pretty dangerous. The ferocity with which they defended a stupidly low score, and the fact that they so nearly pulled off a miraculous victory has got to be a hell of warning signal to the other teams. Once again I’m resorting to my ‘Australians are Vampires’ theory. It’s not enough to knock them down, you’ve got to drive that stake firmly through the heart to make sure you’ve beaten them. And the New Zealand batting order looks pretty brittle to me now.
England made a decent score, but the Sri Lankan batsmen are starting to look very strong, and reeled it in comfortably. Sri Lanka v Australia will be a must watch.
Pakistan look to be 30 or 50 runs short against Zimbabwe. Unless there bowlers can produce something excellent I don’t think 235 will be enough.
The points tablesare looking pretty interesting. New Zealand seem certain to top Pool A, Sri Lanka look safely through, even if they lose to Australia. Bangladesh have a real chance to knock England out if they beat them, but I think England will scrape through.
Pool B looks even better, India and South Africa will top the group in that order, but there’s a logjam developing between Ireland, the West Indies and Zimbabwe for the other two spots, and if Pakistan can win this one they’ll still have a chance as well. Ireland v Zimbabwe next Saturday will be the crucial game I think.
I wasn’t aware Martin Crowe was sick but I’ve just looked it up- he certainly didn’t look well. He was a good and respected player.
England don’t seem to have any kind of tactics in place at all, other than some very basic ‘try not to lose your wicket/try not to let them score runs against you’ stuff. A decent platform here shows that a score of 300 here isn’t likely to be enough - we’ve seen a lot of such scores chased down - and yet that what we seemed to be happy with. And then SL walk it with a well-timed chase.
England may well go through to the quarters, but it’s hard to say that they deserve it.
Well our batting and fielding still stink to high heaven as far as people not named Misbah are concerned. On the other hand, the bowling is looking good. Defending 235 even against Zimbabwe is no easy task.
At least we have a tick in the win column.
I don’t want New Zealand to play Pakistan in the Quarter finals.
So I’ll be cheering for the UAE, South Africa and Ireland when they play Pakistan, sorry AK84.
And the odds on Pakistan winning the whole thing improved from 33-1 to 32-1. The punters were not impressed.
People not named jamshed, irfan or akmal in case of fielding:p
Haha that’s what I was thinking. NZ wouldn’t like to face pak instead of wi or ire. as a reward for topping their group
Pak simply doesn’t look professional in fielding. And why aren’t they playing specialist keeper? Batting isn’t great too but if they arrived in aust.2-3 months before the WC it could hv been a little different
Many teams would have give away 310 while bowling second. It was a very good pitch. Its India who wouldn’t be all that confident at prospect of facing eng. In quarters having lost to them twice in triseries.
Pakistan cricket is a bit like the French rugby union side.
In tournament play, no matter how disorganised/listless they seem through the rounds there is usually one game in the quarter or semi-finals when it all simply clicks into place and it can be very good or even breathtaking.
You just hope they are playing some other bugger at the time.
:p;)
You should hope for a Pakistan victory in those matches then. Because if so, we’ll be 2 or 3 in Gp B and therefor avoid NZ. Coming in 4 would mean a NZ match.
Misbah has been compared with Imran a lot, and not surprising, WC in Aus, same age (and hometowns). But, he reminds me a lot of Steven Waugh in 1999. How friendless and criticised Waugh was then. Waugh, still dragged Australia all the way to the final on his own shoulders, like Maradona with Argentina in FIFA WC1986. He did have a great backup crew though, unlike Misbah,
